Optimal power allocation for channel estimation of OFDM uplinks in time-varying channels

This paper deals with optimal power allocation for channel estimation of orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing uplinks in time-varying channels. In the existing literature, the estimation of time-varying channel response in an uplink environment can be accomplished by estimating the corresponding channel parameters. Accordingly, the optimal power allocation studied in the literature has been in terms of minimizing the mean square error of the channel estimation. However, the final goal for channel estimation is to enable the application of coherent detection, which usually means high spectral efficiency. Therefore, it is more meaningful to optimize the power allocation in terms of capacity. In this paper, we investigate capacity with imperfect channel estimation. By exploiting the derived capacity expression, an optimal power allocation strategy is developed. With this developed power allocation strategy, improved performance can be observed, as demonstrated by the numerical results.